On Dec. 24, 1971, a bomb hidden in a paper bag under a small Christmas tree exploded outside one of the police boxes in Shinjuku San-chome. The explosion caused one officer to lose his leg, the fingers on his left hand and sight in one eye. Several passersby were also seriously injured.
Toshihiko Kamata — the leader of the Black Helmet Group, the small New Left group responsible for the incident — received a life sentence for what became known as the “Christmas Tree Bombing” and is still in prison today. His writings, combined with video footage of sites related to Kamata’s life, are the basis for a new work, “News From K,” by Austrian-born artist Heidrun Holzfeind, currently showing at the Asakusa gallery in Tokyo’s Nishiasakusa neighborhood through Dec. 3.
In the context of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and the ongoing Israeli response, Holzfeind’s video work is timely in its consideration of politics and spectacle, direct action, state-sponsored violence and proportional response. There is also the matter that support for Palestine was a key issue in the formation of Japan’s radical left-wing groups and for the student movements of the 1960s and ’70s.
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